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Padoru Approaches
Hey, hey people~
As Christmas draws ever closer, I’m sure you’re all wondering where we are with things, so allow me to fill you in.
Character Creation
I’ve been working tirelessly towards the completion of this character creator, and while we are not there just yet, I’ve been making great progress. As you can see, I’ve reworked the general layout of the UI. Most of the interface is now completely functional.Project Arkavite - Character Creator
Why the change in layout? The choice description window is only present when a choice is hovered. With our previous design this meant that the majority of the time, you’d have a large empty space right of the player. This made the UI appear unbalanced and feel as though everything was squished to one side of the screen. My first attempt at resolving this issue, involved having the camera pan on mouse hover to keep the player centered in this empty space.
This worked horribly. The cameras auto-pan would clash with the player camera controls in unexpected ways. The camera would needlessly pan whenever your mouse were to pass over a choice on its way to the section buttons. Of course, to resolve this issue I could have put the description reveal on delay, but that would come at the cost of UI responsiveness... My cursed concept work never ceases to amaze me... The Boon & Bane section Icons have also been updated so they are easier to differentiate from one another. "+" and "-" icons are too ambiguous.
So, here’s what we have now. Keeping the player central, I moved all the section buttons to one side (making use of that available space), and brought the character description window to the middle. I also removed the background graphic of the choice panel, in order to create more openess and make the design feel less unbalanced. It also gives us a greater view of our new background environment.
New Environment The most standout change has to be the new backdrop to our character creator. I got my hands on some environmental assets, made some quick tweaks, and threw our lucky character into this quaint little room. It does look nice, and it provides us with a visual point of scale when adjusting the height/proportions of our character.
New Hairstyles Several new hairstyles have been added to the game, with many more on the way. I’ve acquired a couple of stylish hair mesh packs which following some necessary adjustments I intend to use. Blender Model View - Just some of the new hairstyles coming to a character creator somewhere near you. A series of longer hairstyles will also be introduced.
Later into development I’d like to introduce modular hair. That would involve having the hair split into front, back (and possibly side) parts which can be mixed and matched with one another to create a custom style. For now at least, I want to keep things simple by having a base hairstyle, with the option to add ponytails and buns.
Project Arkavite - The Icons currently use a silhouette view, but I may switch to mesh renders. Some level of detail is lost in the solid view which may make it difficult to differentiate styles from one another when more are inevitably added. As for our new color swatch, I’ve configured it in a honeycomb like pattern. The colors themselves are not totally final. I have configured the game to load color data from file so that it can be updated easily, and eventually open to modding. Project Arkavite - Recolor Demo Eyes & Brows Hair, skin, and eyes are all recolorable just like the Unity version. In addition to this I will be creating "eye style" options. These options will allow you to change the iris design and apply various pupil patterns. Do you want heart eyes, or cat-like slits? The option should be made available. I will also be adding a series of new eyebrow designs in the coming weeks.
Project Arkavite - Eye Color
Jiggle Physics, Appendages & Camera Control Arguably the most important feature of all (Jiggle Physics) has been added. It’s passable in its current form, however you might say it's too firm. I can see some room for improvement. Once I update the player skeleton I may exaggerate the jiggle a little more or add sliders which allow the player to scale it up as much as their heart desires.
Project Arkavite - Jiggle UwU
I could also improve the code by having jiggle scale proportional to size. There is much to consider.
I’ve actually gone a step further and applied jiggle to ears as well. It looks cute. But we cannot discuss cat ears without also mentioning their tails. Truth be told, this is a pretty bare bones tail, and the physics has rendered it a little droopy for my liking, but I am also using it as an analog for prototyping hair physics. Down the road I’d like to give the cat tail more volume and some basic actuation so it doesn’t look as flaccid. Project Arkavite - Camera & Rotation The last thing I wanted to mention on this topic was the camera. I've added pan (up/down) and rotate controls to the middle mouse button as well as basic scroll to zoom functionality. It's pretty minor, but also pretty important.
Body Sliders The sliders here are a work in progress. They could definitely do with limits. For now it's just booba and height, but following a skeleton update I'll add functionality for thighs, butt and whatever else makes sense. Face sliders will come at a later point in time.
For these general body sliders I would like to add text to the left or underneath which describes the current level the slider is set to. In the case of booba it may list the cup or in the case of height, it would give you the numerical value of your height.
Modelling & Texturing Plans We have basic cat ears and a basic cat tail. In the coming week I want to finish modelling a floofy kitsune tail, and put together the first outfit model. After which, I’ll be modelling and texturing components for the remaining races, and choices which influence the character appearance (e.g., Eyepatches, Ahoge, Mechanical Limbs, magical seals).
Main Menu
In recent weeks I’ve been rebuilding the Main Menu and it’s sub-menus for Unreal Engine. I’ve kept the general look and feel from the Unity version. I’ve also recreated my fancy load transition. This is still a work in progress, but it is getting close to where I want it to be. Project Arkavite - Main Menu
Soon I'll be glowing up this UI with some material effects. I'm not sure I want to make it as busy as it was in the Unity version.
The Current Schedule
Most of the remaining work now revolves around modelling, texturing and interface polish. We still need to implement Men, Futa, and character description generation before making the first public release.
I am running a little behind the ambitious deadline I set a few months back, but hopefully not by too much. I believe the game will reach an experimental build worthy state in about three to four weeks’ time. Subsequent builds towards the end of January will then focus on adding Men, Futa, and porting the character description subsystem from Unity to Unreal. I’ll also take this opportunity to carry out any necessary fixes before the full public release.
So, to reiterate, the first experimental should drop by the 13th of January and the first public release 2-3 weeks after. My apologies for the great delay. Rebuilding everything these few short months has been quite the headache, but I am pleased with the direction we are moving in and I am excited for the potential this new system is beginning to bring to the table.
But I've rambled on long enough. What do you think of today's developments? Do you like it? Do you hate it? Are you excited? Be sure to let me know!
Thank you all so much for your continued generous support. It’s still a little over a week away, but if you don’t hear from me then, I’d like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.
Your idea and ambition is the only one of its (kind?) I can find being worked on like this if that makes sense, and I find it hard to believe there would be many with the same work ethic that you seem to keep. That being said, loss of support is going to require a few order of magnitudes more dissonance than a style and engine change. How do you figure you'll be going forward with the 3d stuff? The sentiment behind this question is simple curiosity. My family plays Baldur's Gate III so my mind immediately jumped to that when I saw what was being worked on here. The cat ears/tail give me *chef's kiss* good vibes. That's all I can think to say for now as it is. 😅 Hope you have a good holiday season!
Thank you, and Happy New Year! Unfortunately I have yet to play Baldur's Gate so I’m not totally familiar with the comparison. As for what I have in mind moving forward (in general), I don’t plan on straying too far from my initial vision. I’ll be taking advantage of the 3D space and layering some new concepts on top of what I had in mind prior. So we can have more vertical environments, dynamic cameras, and puzzles that make use of 3D space or even physics. I believe Baldur's Gate is turn based? I would like to hang onto live combat and the VN aspects of the 2D version. We may end up looking a bit more like persona in that regard. But depending on where playtesting leads us, I may also take influence from DnD & Pathfinder. Rolling dice in dialogue is fun, but vulnerable to save-scumming unless I program it in a real evil way, which I might lol. As we move back into the sandbox, I’ll be dumbing down some mechanics until we have real gameplay loops established (e.g. Reducing the slot hell a little to simplify the equip process, getting a bare bones inventory/combat/survival loop established). I need to make up for lost time so I’d like to retrace my steps and move forward in a smarter manner. It’s nice to have that showy character creator, but for the Sandbox I feel I need to focus more on mechanics first, and aesthetics later.
7 months ago
SinAm3n
👌Understandable. I don't play BG3 myself, as I don't really like turn-based games. I threw the comparison out there thoughtlessly at 4 in the morning, assuming the game had a similar concept because it was 3d and I had caught a few passing glances at the character creation. There weren't even any boons and banes 🤦♀️.. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts! Your perspective is coveted, especially in this part of the journey. Good luck ❤
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Your idea and ambition is the only one of its (kind?) I can find being worked on like this if that makes sense, and I find it hard to believe there would be many with the same work ethic that you seem to keep. That being said, loss of support is going to require a few order of magnitudes more dissonance than a style and engine change. How do you figure you'll be going forward with the 3d stuff? The sentiment behind this question is simple curiosity. My family plays Baldur's Gate III so my mind immediately jumped to that when I saw what was being worked on here. The cat ears/tail give me *chef's kiss* good vibes. That's all I can think to say for now as it is. 😅 Hope you have a good holiday season!
Thank you, and Happy New Year! Unfortunately I have yet to play Baldur's Gate so I’m not totally familiar with the comparison. As for what I have in mind moving forward (in general), I don’t plan on straying too far from my initial vision. I’ll be taking advantage of the 3D space and layering some new concepts on top of what I had in mind prior. So we can have more vertical environments, dynamic cameras, and puzzles that make use of 3D space or even physics. I believe Baldur's Gate is turn based? I would like to hang onto live combat and the VN aspects of the 2D version. We may end up looking a bit more like persona in that regard. But depending on where playtesting leads us, I may also take influence from DnD & Pathfinder. Rolling dice in dialogue is fun, but vulnerable to save-scumming unless I program it in a real evil way, which I might lol.
As we move back into the sandbox, I’ll be dumbing down some mechanics until we have real gameplay loops established (e.g. Reducing the slot hell a little to simplify the equip process, getting a bare bones inventory/combat/survival loop established). I need to make up for lost time so I’d like to retrace my steps and move forward in a smarter manner. It’s nice to have that showy character creator, but for the Sandbox I feel I need to focus more on mechanics first, and aesthetics later.
👌Understandable. I don't play BG3 myself, as I don't really like turn-based games. I threw the comparison out there thoughtlessly at 4 in the morning, assuming the game had a similar concept because it was 3d and I had caught a few passing glances at the character creation. There weren't even any boons and banes 🤦♀️.. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts! Your perspective is coveted, especially in this part of the journey. Good luck ❤